Eager Magic

Today we will be talking about magic. Books about magic. Especially books about a group of ordinary children discovering magic. Remember Edward Eager? Half Magic, The Well-Wishers, The Time Garden? Old fashioned even when I read them as a kid, but they are still charming today. And then there's Any Which Wall by Laurel Snyder coming out in May this year. It's an homage to Eager in every possible way and made me eager (har) to do some re-reading. But Any Which Wall has plenty of charm of its own. Four kids--two from one family and two from another are on their own over the summer while parents are at work. Susan, the oldest is in middle school, and too cool to play any more, she only hangs out. Emma, the youngest, has just learned to ride her bike and is really trying to keep up with the big kids. Roy and Henry are in the middle--one more serious and the other more accident prone. And then they find the wall. At first they don't know how it works but they soon discover that it's magic and that's when their adventures begin. As they travel through space and time, they learn some lessons about themselves and in the end they have to say good bye to magic. And even if it's not the most thought provoking book I've read lately, it was a lot of fun and one I could recommend to any 2nd to 6th grader capable of reading it. Every book doesn't have to be War and Peace.
Made me think of:
All of Edward Eager's books
The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
Any Which Wall by Laurel Snyder, 978-0-375-95560-3, on sale May 26, 2009